Where The Wild Things Are
by The Crownless Queen
Summary: She is his goddess, the one being he worships above them all. Genderswapped!Bellamort, for Lamia.


So this is genderbent Bellamort. Bellatrix is Algebar, which is another name for Rigel, a star from the Orion constellation. It's not touched in this, but Tom Riddle is Tamsin Riddle – his mother actually named him Tom and died before the orphanage could tell her it was a girl and not a boy, so the orphanage did her this one favor of naming her Tamsin instead.

Title is from Metallica's song of the same name.

 **Where The Wild Things Are**

 _"If they cannot understand the wildness inside you, they will try to tame it and cage it. Find someone who appreciates the beauty of wild things like you."_

The first time Algebar laid eyes on the Lady Voldemort, he was entranced.

She looked about as far from human as one could – with skin as white as a corpse, eyes red as freshly-spilled blood and a face that had taken on oddly serpentine features, it was hard not to – and yet, there was till something beautiful about her, something otherworldly.

She commanded respect though, and fear – respect through fear even, reverence through disgust for some.

This was to simply be his introduction to the followers only known as Death Eaters. He wasn't set to join them until after his graduation, but here and now, standing head bowed and knees bent under the scorching glaze of the one they called the Dark Lady, Algebar could imagine nothing he'd wish to do more than to follow her to the ends of whatever Earth she chose to conquer.

She would be his Lady, he decided with a fervor he hadn't thought he could feel, and he would be her Knight.

 **.x.**

The day of his actual initiation couldn't come fast enough.

It was set for the first Saturday of July, leaving him weeks between the end of classes and that awaited date with nothing to do.

He had already decided to study Battle magics after Hogwarts, or at least that's what he had told the Ministry officials. His true interests, of course, laid in the Dark Arts, always so much more fascinating and versatile than any other type of magic.

And that was what he had been doing for the last few weeks: preparing himself by reading the Black Library's books on Dark Curses, and then practicing them however he could.

Trying them out on a live target would be a novel experience – he hadn't been able to do much worse than mundane and trivial curses in Hogwarts, where bringing down the wrath of Dumbledore was always a possibility one sadly had to contend with, and magic in Muggle neighborhoods had only become possible after his seventeenth birthday a few months ago.

Just thinking about it, just imagining his targets' suffering – a suffering _he_ would bring upon them, one that _he_ would be in control of… There was no feeling quite like it.

And to think that his Lady would be there, watching them, watching _him_ … Why, there was nothing better in the world.

 **.x.**

The room was dark and gloomy. The air felt cold too, and it had an odd quality to it that made Algebar feel like he was being judged by something from beyond this world.

The black cloak he had been told to wear seemed to stick to the clothing he wore beneath it, its weight something he was still unused to, and the simple cloth mask he had been given made his skin itch.

There were five of them in the room, five new recruits standing tall and trying not to shake with anticipation in an empty room where their every breath echoed.

Finally, the door opened, and in came two wizards, who too were cloaked in black clothing, and with them, Lady Voldemort.

They, unlike her who had left her face uncovered, wore flowing masks of silver in the shape of a skull.

And behind them, faces frozen in silent screams, trailed the unmoving bodies of five bloody, filthy Muggles.

There was one for each of them, Algebar realized, and for the first time in that evening, he smiled his parody of a smile, a showing of sharp teeth that gave a mad glow to his eyes. It was a shame the mask hid it.

"Who will go first?" The Lady asked, her two Death Eaters silent by her side, the five bound Muggles lying at the feet of the obsidian throne she had just conjured.

Before Algebar had a chance to volunteer, one of his fellow initiates had stepped forward, a question on his lips.

"And what would you have us do?" He asked arrogantly.

Quick as a snake, the man on her left stroke, his wand flashing with acidic red as he lashed out a spell at the speaker.

"You will address the Lady as her station befits," he spat out, and it wasn't hard to imagine the fury that would deform his features.

Inhaling hard, Algebar thought that he could almost taste it in the air.

The arrogant idiot had fallen from the blow, and Algebar could see that his right arm glistened with the sticky red of blood, but he rose back quickly, swaying slightly on his feet.

"Of course, My Lady," he apologized fervently. "I swear I never meant to cause any disrespect to you, My Lady."

Halting any answer her defender would have had, Voldemort spoke.

"Come now, Avery, it is clear that the man was only… _misguided_. I am sure his next words will be more careful. Besides, his question was a valid one."

Subsiding with a nod, the newly-named Avery stepped back.

"What you have to do, my dear new recruits, is simple: you have to use an Unforgivable each. Prove to me your loyalty, your drive, and you shall be rewarded.

"Fail to do so… Well, I'm sure you have an idea of what'll happen then," she laughed at that, a high-pitched sound full of mirth.

Almost despite himself, Algebar found his lips twitching up in response, his fingers caressing his wand eagerly as he reviewed what spells he would use.

After all, Voldemort had never said they only had to use the Unforgivable, or that they had to only use the one, had she?

 **.x.**

The Muggles were easy prey. Animals, really.

When Voldemort asked for volunteers a second time, Algebar stepped forward before anyone else can.

With a single word and a twist of his wand, he had the skin of the woman in front of him peeling away as her blood boiled in her veins.

Her screams as she wreathed at his feet were the sweetest sound he'd ever heard, and he held the spell for fifteen seconds before releasing it and casting it again. Any longer in one setting and he'd kill her, and well, who'd want that?

His fun was just getting started after all.

At some point, he started laughing, mad cackles coming from deep inside his belly.

He laughed as he Imperiosed the woman into digging out her own eyes and crush them in her fingers, laughed as he canceled the spell and heard her screams of panic and pain, laughed as he tried on the Cruciatus, a curse that gave him a rush like nothing else, and finally, laughed as the green light ended the Muggle's life.

Beside him, his fellow initiates stood frozen. One of them had even thrown up, noticed Algebar from the corner of his eye.

But Algebar didn't have eyes for anyone but Voldemort, who hadn't looked away from him since he had cast his first spell.

She was smiling, her lips pulled into a cruel inhuman expression, and her red eyes seemed to burn.

"Step forward, Algebar. You have done well," she called him, and it felt like anything else had fallen away.

She motioned him forward and he followed. The edge of his cloak trailed in the Muggle's blood and his shoes made an odd squelching sound every time he took another step, but he didn't care for any of that.

The only thing he cared for was the tall figure standing in front of the throne that was waiting for him.

He offered her his arm reverently and she took it, her long fingers cold and dry. She rolled his sleeve slowly, and one his forearm was uncovered, she raised her wand and pressed its tip, glowing red like a hot iron, against his skin.

Algebar felt like screaming – the pain was excruciating, far beyond anything he had ever felt. Instead, he laughed again, and as quickly as it had spread over him, the pain vanished, leaving only a dull kind of ache behind.

He cradled his arm against his chest, the fingers of his other hand caressing the mark he had just been branded with adoringly, and bowed.

"Thank you for this honor, My Lady," he whispered.

He stepped away and moved to the side, standing proudly as one of her Death Eaters now.

Already, he missed their earlier closeness.

 **.x.**

It soon became clear that Voldemort favored him.

The woman, who was so much more than that now, called upon Algebar more than she called on any other of her followers.

"I don't want to appear impudent, and don't think I'm not flattered, My Lady, but… Why me, of all people?" He asked her once, kneeling at her feet after she had handed him yet another mission that could be accomplished by anyone else.

"You, Algebar," she replied, her voice as smooth as silk, trailing down a finger down his cheek, "are special." She tilted his chin up until his eyes were locked with hers, and together they rose as one, until they stood face to face, unbearably close. "And I always take care to treasure _special_ things."

She kissed him first, her lips thin and hard against his, their teeth and tongues clashing as if some great battle was taking place until finally, suddenly, Algebar surrendered.

She drew blood first too, biting deep on his lower lip, and sucked it away like it was nothing. Her fingernails dug red crescent-like indents in his arms as she held him in place, and when they finally separated to catch their breath her lips were still tinged red.

He felt an odd thrill in his stomach at the sight of it, knowing he had been the one to put it there – this was his blood, his self on her body.

It felt sacred somehow – or rather, like a sacrilege, like violating something holy. The idea of it had been exhilarating enough when it had been just a shameful fantasy he had in the middle of the night, but now that it had actually happened, Algebar found that his earlier feelings paled in comparison.

She wasn't just the Lady he followed anymore, no.

She was his goddess, the woman he worshiped above anything and anyone else in this world, the being he would gladly give his everything for.

"Now go," she told him, licking her lips clean, and Algebar went.

He would always go wherever she asked him to.

 **.x.**

They fit together, Algebar thought. He wouldn't dare to delude himself into thinking that it was love, but it was something.

Passion, heat and fire. Those were all the things he needed in his life.

Love was for weaklings, for their opponents who thought themselves all high and mighty with their morals, as if those would protect them when the Dark Lady Voldemort came knocking on their door.

Besides, love was too small of a word for what they shared anyway.

It couldn't encompass the way her fingers left bloody scratches on his back or the way it felt to come down from a high of inflicted pain together.

It couldn't describe the way his body, his entire being was hers to do as she pleased, be it the sweetest tortures or the more painful kind of treats.

It didn't, he thought, explain how he would ruin this world if she but asked him to.


End file.
